"Hurt our feelings" — the Prime Minister of Japan spoke about Putin's trip to Iturup

The trip of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the island of Iturup (Japan reads the southern part of the Kuril Islands as its "ancestral territory") complicated the "medium- and long-term restoration of relations" between Moscow and Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters, expressing a strong protest.

"We strongly protest in this regard," she said.

Takaichi stressed that all the "northern territories", as Tokyo calls the southern part of the Kuril Islands, including Iturup, are "the original [Japanese] territory from a historical and legal point of view." The head of the Japanese government also said that Putin's trip to the Kuril Islands "completely contradicts Japan's position" and that it "hurt the feelings of the Japanese people."

Takaichi also pointed out that this "complicated the medium- and long-term restoration of relations."

"We would like the Russian side to take seriously the gravity of this circumstance," she said.

According to Takaichi, from the moment Putin announced in January 2024 that he planned to visit the "northern territories", including Iturup, Japan "urged the Russian side to ensure that this trip did not take place," TASS quoted her as saying.

Moscow and Tokyo has been negotiating since the middle of the twentieth century to work out a peace agreement on the results of World War II. The main obstacle to this remains disagreements over the rights to the southern part of the Kuril Islands. After the end of the war, the entire archipelago was incorporated into the Soviet Union, but Japan disputes the ownership of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and a group of small uninhabited islands. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stressed that Russian sovereignty over these territories, which has an appropriate international legal formalization, is beyond doubt.